Algorithmic Accountability

Diakopoulos, Nicholas

doi:10.1080/21670811.2014.976411

Cited by 565 publications

(209 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…When discussing harassment as an issue of platform governance, software is crucial to keep in view, given how the work of moderation, filtering, and gatekeeping is increasingly reliant on highly automated algorithmic systems (Diakopoulos, 2015;Gillespie, 2014;Tufekci, 2014).…”

Section: Harassment As An Issue Of Platform Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the way recommendation and filtering systems work, there is strong potential for such systems to even influence elections, as a controversial study by staff at Facebook, Inc. suggested (Bond et al, 2012). In response, scholars have sought projects focusing on 'algorithmic accountability' (Diakopoulos, 2015) and have pushed for more transparency in how such platforms filter and promote content. It makes sense to ask if blockbots raise similar kinds of concerns that algorithmic recommendation and filtering systems do.…”

Section: Concerns About Fragmentation and Automated Discriminationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bot-based collective blocklists in Twitter: the counterpublic moderation of harassment in a networked public space

Geiger

2016

Information, Communication & Society

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This article introduces and discusses bot-based collective blocklists (or blockbots) in Twitter, which have been developed by volunteers to combat harassment in the social networking site. Blockbots support the curation of a shared blocklist of accounts, where subscribers to a blockbot will not receive any notifications or messages from those on the blocklist. Blockbots support counterpublic communities, helping people moderate their own experiences of a site. This article provides an introduction and overview of blockbots and the issues that they raise about networked publics and platform governance, extending an intersecting literature on online harassment, platform governance, and the politics of algorithms. Such projects involve a far more reflective, intentional, transparent, collaborative, and decentralized way of using algorithmic systems to respond to issues like harassment. I argue that blockbots are not just technical solutions but social ones as well, a notable exception to common technologically determinist solutions that often push responsibility for issues like harassment to the individual user. Beyond the case of Twitter, blockbots call our attention to collective, bottom-up modes of computationally assisted moderation that can be deployed by counterpublic groups who want to participate in networked publics where hegemonic and exclusionary practices are increasingly prevalent.

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Section: Harassment As An Issue Of Platform Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Concerns About Fragmentation and Automated Discriminationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bot-based collective blocklists in Twitter: the counterpublic moderation of harassment in a networked public space

Geiger

2016

Information, Communication & Society

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“…As many debate the origins and implications of such connections, Nicholas Diakopoulos, calls for more "algorithmic accountability reporting" from journalists, and differentiates between the intentional and incidental application of "algorithmic power." [26] The profit motive has also been essential in mobilizing research about algorithms for some time. Advertisers long to know the surest way to make a status update "sticky" in a space such as Facebook, keeping it near the top of feeds for a longer time.…”

Section: Attention To Algorithmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A path to understanding the effects of algorithm awareness

Hamilton

Karahalios

Sandvig

et al. 2014

CHI '14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

108

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The rise in prevalence of algorithmically curated feeds in online news and social media sites raises a new question for designers, critics, and scholars of media: how aware are users of the role of algorithms and filters in their news sources? This paper situates this problem within the history of design for interaction, with an emphasis on the contemporary challenges of studying, and designing for, the algorithmic "curation" of feeds. Such a problem presents particular challenges when, as is common, neither the user nor the researcher has access to the actual proprietary algorithms at work.

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“…Scholars examining Sina Weibo in China, for example, have collected large numbers of microblog posts shortly after they are posted, and tracked them over time in order to see how certain forms of political speech are removed due to government pressure (Zeng et al, 2016). Diakopoulos (2014Diakopoulos ( , 2015 provides a good overview of how computational journalists are using reverse engineering techniques to make algorithms more accountable, focusing on many of the values outlined above. Perel and Elkin-Koren (2016) have outlined a methodology for systematically experimenting with the content moderation processes of online intermediaries by uploading prohibited and permitted content and observing the results.…”

Section: Quantitative Approaches and Network Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the legitimacy of platform governance

Suzor¹,

Geelen²,

West³

2017

Preprint

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This paper provides an overview of the key values that we argue should underpin an index of the legitimacy of the governance of online intermediaries. The aim is ultimately to allow scholars to rank the policies and practices of intermediaries against core human rights values and principles of legitimate governance in a way that enables comparison across different intermediaries and over time. This work builds on the efforts of a broad range of researchers already working to systematically investigate the governance of social media platforms and telecommunications intermediaries. In this paper, we present our review and analysis of the work that has been carried out to date, using the digital constitutionalism literature to identify opportunities for further research and collaboration.The theme of this special issue is the deeply contested political question of how human rights should be protected in a digital environment. 'Digital constitutionalism' encompasses "a constellation of initiatives that have sought to articulate a set of political rights, governance norms, and limitations on the exercise of power on the Internet" (Gill et al., 2015: 2). One of the key challenges of the digital constitutionalism project is to articulate appropriate limits on the private exercise of power by online intermediaries, how those limits may be imposed, and by whom. This is a complex problem, and requires a new understanding of constitutionalism in an era where regulation is not only, or even not primarily, done by the state (Black, 2001). We take a broad view of 'governance' that encompasses all 'organized efforts to manage the course of events in a social system ' (Burris et al., 2008: 3). This broad definition focuses attention particularly on the policies and practices of online intermediaries as key actors in the governance of online behaviour.Intermediaries play a critical role in governing the internet by developing and managing its infrastructure. By 'intermediaries', we mean the broad range of entities that "bring together or facilitate transactions between third parties on the Internet" (OECD, 2010: 9). Intermediaries of all types ---the owners of physical pipes, the providers of core routing services, the search engines that make content visible, the content hosts, and the social media platforms ---all shape how people communicate in important but different ways. They are the focal points of control, where pressure can be most effectively deployed to influence user behavior (Goldsmith and Wu, 2006), and the decisions that they make have a real impact on public culture and the social and political lives of their users (DeNardis, 2014). In order to progress the political project of digital constitutionalism, more needs to be known about how intermediaries govern their networks and how their decisions impact the basic rights of individuals in different contexts. In this paper, we present an outline of the values we suggest ought to be measured, a guide to the work that has already been completed, and a sketch for futu...

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Algorithmic Accountability

Cited by 565 publications

References 21 publications

Bot-based collective blocklists in Twitter: the counterpublic moderation of harassment in a networked public space

Bot-based collective blocklists in Twitter: the counterpublic moderation of harassment in a networked public space

A path to understanding the effects of algorithm awareness

Evaluating the legitimacy of platform governance

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